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LIBRARY «( CONGRESS 
Two Cooler Received 

NOV 20 1905 

Copyright Entry 
-A i (TV. 1 . I 9 
CLASS At XXc. No. 

/3 o /try- 

COPY B. 


Copyright, 1905, 

By FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 


Published in October, 1905 


The University Press, Cambridge, U. S. A. 







THE SMALLEST GIRL OF ALL AND 
THE CLOTHES SHE WORE 


J ANE had been very lonely before the Smallest Girl of All came. 
Now she was as happy as a skylark. She ran about the house 
laughing and singing and hugging everybody she met. 

“ I have a baby sister,” she told the postman. “She is only as big 
as my biggest doll; but she has visiting cards already, and she 
knows how to sneeze!” 

“ What colour are her eyes ? ” the postman asked. He wanted to 
say something nice, for, like everybody else, he was very fond of 
Jane. 

“ They are blue, and her mouth is pink, and so are her fingers 
and toes,” Jane answered. “Now I must run and see if she has 
wakened from her nap.” 

So the postman passed on down the street blowing his whistle, 
and Jane ran upstairs to the cool, quiet nursery. Yes; the Smallest 
Girl of All was awake. She lay in her little bassinette, wrapped in 
a white pinning-blanket embroidered with blue daisies. 

“ I want to measure her, please,” said Jane to the comfortable 
looking, red-cheeked nurse. 

“ Mercy me! What for?” asked the nurse huffily. “I can tell 
you without any measuring that she is just the right size for a baby.” 

“Of course she is,” Jane explained. “But since we are all so 
glad to have her, I think we might find some better clothes for her 
to wear.” 

The nurse laughed. Then she brought the tape-measure and 
measured the baby very carefully for Jane. 

“ There,” she said, “ I hope you are satisfied.” 

“Yes, thank you,” Jane answered ; and after kissing the Smallest 



THE SMALLEST GIRL OF ALL 


3 

Girl of All very gently on the forehead, she sped upstairs to the 
play-room, which was in the garret at the top of the house. 

Here, before her baby sister came, Jane used to spend many 
rainy days. Other little girls often envied her. “What a lovely 
room you have in which to play ! ” they would cry. 

“Yes,” Jane answered quietly, and never told anybody how 
lonely she was ; but perhaps people guessed, for they were always 
bringing her dolls. The walls of the room were lined with them. 
They were of all sizes and conditions. It looked almost like a shop. 
One fine lady had come from Paris, another from Germany, and 
there was also a funny black pickaninny that Jane’s uncle had sent 
up from Virginia. Jane worked hard to keep the various members 
of her large family comfortable ; but she did not love them. They 
were all very stupid, she thought ; especially one life-sized baby 
doll that shut its eyes with a snap whenever you started to sing it to 
sleep, so that there was no need to finish the lullaby. It was Jane’s 
aunt who had brought her this child, with a whole trunk full of 
charming clothes. 

“Now,” said the aunt, “you have a life-sized baby to play 
with. You need not be lonely any more.” 

“ Thank you,” Jane answered politely, and set the baby doll in a 
row with the others. She really thought she hated it most of all. 
Forty-four children were entirely too many to take care of! Jane 
used sometimes to scowl at her family when she was alone with 
them, and even call them names. But this morning, as she entered 
the play-room, she smiled about her pleasantly. 

“ Let me see how big you are,” she said to the baby doll ; and 
took it up in her arms and measured it, just as she had seen Nurse 
measure the Smallest Girl of All. Sure enough, they were very much 
of a size ! If anything, the doll was a little larger than the baby. 

“ You will be of some use in the world, at last,” cried Jane, as she 
proceeded to undress her forty-fourth child, and laid her aside in a 
black walnut crib with a pink afghan for covering. 


4 


THE SMALLEST GIRL OF ALL 


Then she set the other dolls in a prim row about the room, and 
stood in the middle of the floor and recited a Spell. The Spell was 
to put the dolls to sleep. Jane had read of it once in a fairy book. 

“You need not any of you wake again until I call you,” she re- 
marked, after which she went and sat down beside the little trunk 
her aunt had given her, and took out all the baby-clothes. 

There was a beautiful silk-embroidered coat and a lace bonnet 
to go with it. There were fine linen slips, and a long christening- 
robe, with a let-in lace front; there were cunning little flannel 
petticoats, and a pair of knitted boots, — everything, indeed, that a 
baby could need or wish for, and all so beautifully made! Jane 
shook the little garments out one by one and again packed them 
away in the trunk, which she then flung over her shoulder, just 
as she had seen expressmen do, and carried it down to the nursery. 

“ Here,” she said, “ are some proper dresses for our baby to wear.” 

“ How well you have kept them,” cried the aunt, who had made 
the little wardrobe. “ They are certainly very pretty and I believe 
they will fit.” 

“Yes,” replied Jane’s mother, “they seem to be the right size. 
One can never have too many of such things.” 

So, as soon as the Smallest Girl of All ceased to wear pinning- 
blankets she was put into dolls’ clothes. How charming she looked 
in them, to be sure ! The little linen slips were just the thing for 
morning wear, but the beautiful christening-robe with the let-in lace 
front was used only for very best. 

Now the other little girls envied Jane more than ever. They 
had often heard of a doll who wore baby-clothes, but never before 
of a baby who put on doll-dresses. 

“ It must be lots of fun,” they said. 

“ It is,” answered Jane, earnestly, as she sat in a great arm-chair 
and held the Smallest Girl of All, who never by any chance went to 
sleep before one was ready. 






* 










THE CASTLE-BUILDER 


I BUILT a castle, high, so high ! 

I think it almost touched the sky ; 

With parapet and battlement, 

Where armed sentries came and went. 

’T was made of spools. When it was done 
I clapped my hands, it was such fun ! 

And so my castle fell. Oh me ! 

I ’d built it very carefully. 

And one spool rolled across the floor ; 

I cannot find it any more. 

Now I must rest before I try 
To build another twice as high. 




THE VERY LITTLE GIRL AND 
HER PLAYMATES 


T HE Very Little Girl had such nice, funny playmates that I 
think perhaps you would like to hear about them. First came 
Tippecanoe, who was the nicest and funniest of them all. 
He was a grey flannel elephant with a long curly trunk and white 
kid tusks. The Very Little Girl’s mother had cut him out from a 
tissue paper pattern, and then stuffed him with sawdust; but Tippe- 
canoe had so much Sense that no one would ever guess this. 

“ He has real brains, I am sure,” the Very Little Girl used to say, 
“and only look at the gold fringe on his blanket! Sometimes I 
think I love Tippecanoe better than anybody in the world, — except 
Father and Mother, of course.” 

But this is not beginning at the real beginning of my story, which 
happened a long time ago last winter. Then there was a Christmas 
tree and under it stood Tippecanoe looking as wise as possible. 

“ Oh, goodness me ! ” cried the Very Little Girl, hopping about on 
one foot. “Is it a mosquito?” For she had never seen a grey 
flannel elephant before ; but she had often heard of mosquitoes. 

“No,” answered Mother; and everybody laughed because they 
were so glad Christmas had come. Then the Very Little Girl took 
Tippecanoe up in her arms and hugged him hard. 

“ What shall I name him ? ” she asked. 

“You might call him Tippecanoe,” Father answered, “because 
if you went sailing it would not do to take an elephant along.” 

So Tippecanoe got his name. It was as good a name as any 
other, the Very Little Girl thought; but she made up her mind then 
and there that wherever she went the grey flannel elephant should 
go too. And, indeed, he did ! 

“ My dear ! ” cried Mother two hours later that same morning a^ 



THE VERY LITTLE GIRL 


3 


the family was on its way to church. She had spied the tip of a 
white kid tusk peeping out from the folds of the Very Little Girl’s 
cloak! But Tippecanoe was so good and quiet all through the 
sermon that no one had to be scolded. 

What a fine playmate he was, to be sure ! He never became 
rude nor cross, no matter what happened to him. This was lucky, 
as he had a great many adventures. 

The first adventure happened on New Year’s Day, when Tippe- 
canoe was only a week old. The Very Little Girl had taken him 
into the kitchen to pay a visit to Cook ; and there he climbed up on 
the table and fell into a great bowl of cranberry sauce. Now he 
was no longer a grey flannel elephant but a bright scarlet one! 
How the Very Little Girl wept and sobbed as she looked at the 
beautiful, gold-fringed blanket. She feared it was spoiled ; but after 
a good bath in the wash-basin Tippecanoe was almost as handsome 
as before, only a little pinker. The next week he went mining for 
diamonds in the nursery coal scuttle, and this darkened his com- 
plexion again. Then the Very Little Girl had whooping-cough, and 
Tippecanoe had it, too, and had to take medicine. It was brown, 
sticky medicine, and it ran down the outside of his trunk. 

“ Tippecanoe is beginning to look quite old ,” said the Very Little 
Girl one morning. “ I ’m sure I can’t see why, for he has n’t had 
any birthdays yet.” 

But all the same it was true. Tippecanoe had lost one tusk and 
one eye. His stuffing had become loose and wabbly. 

“ I think,” said the mother of the Very Little Girl, “ that it would 
be nice for you to have a new doll to play with, don’t you?” 

“Yes, indeed,” answered the Very Little Girl, happily; and that 
same day Evangeline came. 

She was a beautiful child. She had a white lace cap that tied 
under the chin, and the dearest shoes in the world. 

But "where was Tippecanoe ? The Very Little Girl, who wished 
to introduce him to Evangeline, searched all over the house. 


4 


THE VERY LITTLE GIRL 


“Why don’t you come and play with your new baby?” Mother 
asked. “ Tippecanoe was growing so old and shabby. Perhaps he 
tired of our house and ran away to Africa to join the wild elephants.” 

At these terrible words the Very Little Girl threw herself down 
upon the nursery floor and wept aloud. A new doll was all very 
well ; but nothing could make up for the loss of her grey flannel 
elephant. Had Tippecanoe really run away to Africa? It seemed 
impossible. 

The Very Little Girl felt so sad and lonely that Mother called 
Father up on the telephone and asked him to bring home a new 
elephant that evening. 

So Timmy came. He was dark brown, because there was not a 
grey elephant to be had in the city. The Very Little Girl gave him 
one hard spank, and set him down in a corner beside Evangeline. 
That night she dreamed of Tippecanoe, and the next morning woke 
with a headache. 

“ Oh, this will never do,” said Mother. “ Let us send a telegram 
to Africa and beg Tippecanoe to come home again.” 

So the Very Little Girl wrote the telegram with funny upside- 
down strokes of her pencil, and Father carried it away in his pocket. 
Strange as it may seem, the message must have reached the right 
address; for, will you believe it? — one morning, three days later, 
when the Very Little Girl went out on the balcony, there in the 
bright, spring sunshine stood Tippecanoe ! 

He was as young looking and as beautiful as that first morning 
when the Very Little Girl found him under the Christmas tree. 
He had both tusks and both eyes, and a beautiful new blanket 
with a gold fringe. Evidently the short vacation in Africa had 
done him a world of good. 

“ Oh ! ” cried the Very Little Girl, and she took Tippecanoe up in 
her arms and hugged him hard. After that Evangeline and Timmy 
were brought out, and everybody had a fine time playing together 
in the May sunshine. 












THE BLOWING MEADOWS 


T HE blowing meadows where the June winds play, 
Heigh-ho ! we ’ll rove to-day ! 

There where the sky and clover blossoms meet, 

The world is wild and sweet. 

And fragrant feasts along the way are flung 
On fences berry-hung ! 

The bright-winged butterfly, the honey-bee, 

As welcome there, as we ! 

And though the wind may toss our sleeves and hair, 

We ’ll laugh and never care ; 

But play that we are swallows, and a nest 
At last shall give us rest. 

The blowing meadows where the June winds play , 
Heigh-ho ! we 'll rove to-day . 


THE LITTLE GIRL WHO FOUND 
A TWIN 

T HE Little Girl did not at all wish to go away into the country. 

“ There will be no one there with whom I can play,” she 
said. 

“ How do you know? ” asked her mother. 

“Well, there will be no one whom I shall care about,” the Little 
Girl answered. “ Can’t I go back to school instead ? I am quite 
well now, — really I am ! See how fat my arms have grown ! ” 

Just then the Little Girl began to cough. It was a pity to spoil 
so fine an argument ! 

Mother shook her head. “ Have you ever seen the real country 
meadows in June?” she asked. “Wait till you gather pink clover 
blossoms and brown-eyed daisies ! They are better than stupid 
lesson-books, I can tell you. ” 

But the Little Girl would not smile. She had been ill for nearly 
two months now. The doctor said that what she needed was the 
open air, the blue sky, and the free green fields. He tried to make 
it sound as pleasant as possible. 

“ I want you to run about like a young colt,” said he, “ and forget 
that there are such things as school-books.” 

“ But I ’m not a colt,” answered the Little Girl stubbornly, “ and 
I just love geography.” 

“ Well, then, bound the North Pole,” said the doctor. This was 
rather mean of him, for the Little Girl was not up to the North Pole 
yet. 

That same afternoon the Little Girl’s mother packed the Little 
Girl’s trunk. 



THE LITTLE GIRL WHO FOUND A TWIN 


3 


“ Here is a nice broad shade hat to keep the freckles off your 
nose,” said she. “ And here are a pair of rubber overshoes to keep 
your toes dry. Be sure you wear them when the grass is wet.” 

“ I will,” answered the Little Girl sorrowfully. 

And now the next morning had come. Everything was ready. 
A nice lunch had been put up in a dainty little basket, for the trip 
would take almost the whole day. Many of the Little Girl’s friends 
had come in to bid her good-bye. That was the hardest thing of all. 

“ It is so sad to leave the people you love,” said the Little Girl, 
as she kissed the family cat fondly between its grey ears. “ Good- 
bye ! good-bye, everybody ! ” 

The hack was waiting at the door. The Little Girl was lifted in. 
Crack ! crack ! went the driver’s whip. Away they started. There 
was hardly time to make the train. 

It was the Little Girl’s fat uncle who was to take charge of her 
during the journey. He had business in that part of the State to 
which she was going. The Little Girl sat primly beside him with 
her hands folded in her lap and stared out of the car windows. She 
knew that she was too old to cry ; but for all that the sparrows on 
the telegraph wires looked blurred and mussy. The Little Girl 
blinked hard, and then the sparrows turned purple and pink, the 
way things do when you see them through a prism. As to the fat 
uncle, he read his newspaper and never once glanced up till lunch 
time. He did not know how to talk to Little Girls. 

At last, late in the afternoon, the train pulled up at a wayside 
station. It was an express train, and the engineer had to be 
signalled especially to let the Little Girl off. The fat uncle kissed 
her, and handed her over to the baggage master. The train whirled 
on again ; and a farmer’s boy with a freckled face, who had been 
leaning against the station door, came up and touched his hat. 

“ Be you the Little Girl from the city we ’re expecting up to our 
place ? ” he asked. 

“Yes,” answered the Little Girl shyly. 




4 


THE LITTLE GIRL WHO FOUND A TWIN 


“ Well, then,” said the farmer’s boy, “ there is some one here to 
meet you.” And he led the way to a light road waggon, in the back 
of which sat another Little Girl with brown eyes and beautiful 
yellow curls. 

“ Oh ! ” cried the Little Girl, as the farmer’s boy helped her to a 
place in the carriage. “ How nice it was of you to come ! I have 
been so afraid that there would be no one here for me to play with ! ” 

“ I could n’t have kept away,” the Other Little Girl answered. 
“ I have been counting the days since Monday.” 

Then they told each other their names and how old they were. 

“ My birthday comes on the fourteenth of June,” said the Little 
Girl. “ I will be nine years old then.” 

“ Why, so will I, on the very same day ! ” the Other Little Girl 
cried delightedly. “ We must be twins ! Is n’t that too lovely ? ” 

“ Get up ! ” chirruped the farmer’s boy to his horses, and away 
they started down the long, dusty road, on either side of which 
lay beautiful meadow lands. 

The next evening the Little Girl wrote a letter to her mother. 

“ Dear mother: ” she began, “ I am so happy here, you can't 
think ! There is another little girl , and she and I are twins . 
We have a birthday on the same day , and we are going to give 
a party to each other. If you send me a present, please send 
her one , too. This morning we were out in the pasture 
gathering daisies. We are going to send them to the poor 
little sick children in the city . I forgot my overshoes and my 
hat , but it does n't matter, because the other little girl forgot 
hers. I don't care any more about school, or learning to 
bound the North Pole. You may tell the Doctor so." 

Then there was a big blot, which the Little Girl turned into a 
good-night kiss, because she was very sleepy. 












SISTER 


O H, Sister is so very kind, 

She ’ll button up your frock behind. 

If you are sick, she ’ll read to you, 

And tell you fairy-stories, too. 

She has a very pretty room 

Where she will sometimes let you come ; 

And show you books and other things ; 

And maybe even lend her rings. 

She ’ll wash your face and comb your hair ; 
If you are cross she does not care. 

She always helps you cut your food ; — 

Oh, Sister is so very good ! 



THE BIG GIRL AND HER PRETTY 

ROOM 


N OW that the Big Girl had grown so tall that she wore her 
fair, fluffy hair in a twisted braid at the back of her neck, and 
her dresses almost touched the top of her shoes, her mother 
said that she might have a room of her own. 

“ But what shall we do ? ” asked the Big Girl’s little sisters. 
“ There will be no one to tell us stories when we wake early in the 
morning.” 

“ Oh, you may come into my room and visit,” answered the Big 
Girl, kindly. “ And perhaps, sometimes, I will even invite you to 
spend the night.” 

“ That is not the same as having you always with us,” the little 
sisters complained. They just loved the Big Girl, and they thought 
it very hard that she should grow up and move away from them. 
But the Big Girl herself was delighted. 

“ I am to choose the wall-paper, and a rug, and everything pre- 
cisely as I want it,” she told her friends. “ Mother is going to give 
me a new desk and Father has ordered a bookcase all for my own. 
Isn’t it splendid? ” 

“ Indeed, it is ! ” the friends answered, and they twittered and 
flitted about the Big Girl like a flock of excited birds. 

Certainly the room was a very pretty one. It had two low, 
sunny windows and a charming little balcony overhung with honey- 
suckle and crimson ramblers where the Big Girl planned to swing 
her hammock. 



THE BIG GIRL AND HER PRETTY ROOM 


3 


“ The wall-paper shall be green,” she said, “ and the rug, too. I 
want my room to be just like Aurora Leigh’s.” For the Big Girl 
was very fond of poetry. 

The little sisters stood about and admired while the pretty lace 
curtains were draped in the windows and the books set in the new 
bookcase. 

“ Let us help, too ! ” they cried. And one hammered a nail in the 
new wall-paper with the Big Girl’s best hairbrush, and the other 
broke a china jar ; but the Big Girl did not mind. 

At last everything was ready. “To-morrow I shall move in,” said 
the Big Girl with a satisfied sigh. 

But the next morning, as everybody opened their mail at the 
breakfast table, Mother looked up from a letter she had been reading. 

“ What a pity,” she remarked. “ Poor Miss Smithers is ill. She 
writes that she is quite worn out, and will be unable to come to us 
next week. I must look for somebody else to do my sewing. I am 
very sorry.” 

“ Miss Smithers is sorry, too, I guess,” one of the little sisters said. 
“ She loves roses and the country. She told me that when she 
came to our house last year and saw the robins on the lawn it was 
just like a holiday.” 

“ There are n’t any robins in the city,” the other little sister con- 
tinued, “ but Miss Smithers used to have a canary in a gilt cage. 
That was when her mother was alive. Now she lives all alone, 
because a cat ate the canary, and her mother has gone to heaven. 
I wish Miss Smithers could come to see us and have a real 
holiday. I like her.” 

“ So do I,” answered the Big Girl, stirring her coffee thoughtfully. 
Then she looked up and a soft blush overspread her face. 

“ May n’t I invite Miss Smithers to visit me for a week, Mother ? ” 
she asked. “ She can have my room and lie in the hammock on the 
verandah, and I will carry up her tray. It need not be any trouble 
to anybody.” 


THE BIG GIRL AND HER PRETTY ROOM 

“ It is a delightful plan,” the Big Girl’s mother answered. “ Only 
are you sure you will not be sorry before the week is out ? Remem- 
ber how anxious you have been to move.” 

“ Oh, I can wait,” the Big Girl answered. So that very morning 
the invitation was written, and two days later Miss Smithers arrived. 

She was a slender little woman, pale and thin. She had been 
pretty once upon a time; but she had had to work so hard, and 
make so many dresses for other people to wear, that the colour had 
faded out of her cheeks and the light had died in her eyes. 

“ Oh, what a pretty, pretty room ! ” she cried, when the children 
had helped her up the stairs and the Big Girl opened the door and 
led her in. “ And the verandah, and the honeysuckle ! It is like 
fairyland ! ” 

“ My mother let me have everything just as I wanted it,” the Big 
Girl explained. “I ’m glad you like it, too.” 

Then she settled Miss Smithers comfortably in the hammock and 
ran downstairs to fetch a cup of tea. 

In the kitchen she was met by her little sisters. 

“You can’t leave us now for a whole week longer,” they cried. 
“And we are going to wake early every morning and make you tell 


















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